Richard L. Hanna: “I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, small businesses are the lifeblood of our economy. They are the…”

“I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, small businesses are the lifeblood of our economy. They are the catalyst for job growth and job creation all across our Nation. They certainly are in upstate New York where I started my own small business some 30 years ago, which I ran successfully for that same period of time, employing hundreds of people from my community, friends and neighbors to this day. Unemployment is still too high. It's over 8 percent in my home of New York. Our constituents want to go back to work. They just need the opportunity. That's what I heard from small business owners when I hosted a meeting of the Central New York Business Network earlier this month. Government can help by advancing policies that enable our 27 million small businesses to do what they do best--compete and create jobs. There is no silver bullet, but there are solutions that we can work together on starting today. Here are a few: Tax relief. Small businesses in America pay some of the highest taxes in the world, and the associated regulations are also an enormous barrier to growth. The average tax compliance cost for employees for small businesses is three times what it is for large businesses. We need to make taxes lower, fairer, more predictable and generally more understandable. We will be voting on a bill of this nature sometime this week. Freedom from government competition.…”